POSITION OF PEKING.

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a sandy plain, about twelve miles south-west of the Pei ho, and about a hundred miles west-north-west of its mouth, in latitude 39° 54′ 13′′ N., and longitude 116° 27′ E., or nearly on the parallel of Samarkand, Erzroom, Naples, and Philadelphia. A small branch of this river, called Tung-hwui ho, enters the city on the north-west, and supplies it with water, before emptying into the Pei ho. The entire circuit of the walls and suburbs is reckoned by Father Hyacinthe, who resided there many years, at twenty-five miles, and its area at twenty-seven square miles. This estimate probably includes the suburbs, as Barrow (page 581) puts it down at fourteen square miles. Like Canton and other cities, which have overpassed the limits of their walls, it is not easy to separate the city from the suburbs; and this constitutes the chief difficulty in estimating the population. Du Halde reckons it to be about 3,000,000, and Klaproth 1,300,000; others place it between these extremes; but comparing it with London, whose circuit is about eighteen miles, and population 1,800,000, there seems to be no insuperable objection at stating that of Peking at two millions. The broad streets, the river, parks and squares of the former, are probably equal to the waste ground and gardens of the latter.

Peking is regarded by the Chinese as one of their most ancient cities, but it was not made the capital of the country until its conquest by the Mongols, when Kublai, about 1282, established his court first at this spot, then called Shuntien fu (i. e. city Obedient to Heaven), and afterwards removed it to Hangchau. The native emperors who succeeded the Mongols held their court at Kiangning fu or Nanking, until Yungloh, the third monarch of the Ming dynasty, who as prince of Yen had reigned at the former capital, transferred the seat of government there in 1411, where it has ever since remained. Under the Mongols, the city was called Khan-palik (i. e. city of the Khan), changed into Cambalu in the accounts of those times; on the Chinese maps it is usually called King-sz' (i. e. Capital of the Court).

It was at first surrounded by a single wall pierced by nine gates, whence it is sometimes called the City of Nine Gates. A part of the southern suburbs has since been inclosed, and the city now consists of two portions, the northern or Tartar city, called Nui ching, containing about twelve square miles, where are the palace, government buildings, and troops; and the south

ern, called Wai ching, or Outer city, where the Chinese live. The wall of the city is thirty feet high, twenty-five thick at the base, and the inner face slopes in so much that it is only twelve feet wide across the terre-plein upon which the parapet is erected. Near the gates, of which there are sixteen in all, the walls are faced with stone, but in other places with large bricks, laid in a mortar of lime and clay, which in process of time becomes almost as durable as stone. The intermediate space between the facings is filled up with the earth taken from the ditch which surrounds the city. Square towers, projecting fifty feet from the outer side of the walls, occur at intervals of about sixty yards, and one of these buttress-like defences stands on each side of every gate, connected in front by a semi-circular fort; the entrance into the area is at the side and not directly in front. The arches of the gateways are strong, and each gate is surmounted by a wooden building several stories high, with painted port-holes for cannon.

At the sides of the gates, and also between them, are esplanades for mounting to the top; the ditch around the city is fed from the Tunghwui river, which also supplies all the other ditches leading across or through the city. The approach to Peking from Tung chau is by a well paved road, but little or nothing of the buildings inside the walls is seen; and were it not for the high lookout towers over the gates, it would more resemble an encampment inclosed by a massive wall than a large metropolis. No spires or towers of churches, no pillars or monuments, no domes or minarets, nor even many dwellings of superior elevation, break the dull uniformity of this or any Chinese city. In Peking, the different colored tiles, yellow, green, and dun red, upon the roofs, impart a variety of colors to the scene, but the only objects to relieve the monotony are usually large clumps of trees, and the flag-staffs in pairs before every official residence. A towering pagoda is usually the only building which claims the pre-eminence. It is no doubt, in a social point of view, far better that all the people should have decently comfortable tenements, than that the mud hovels of the wretched poor should only look the more forlorn beside the magnificent palace of the nabob; still, the mere scenery, as at Calcutta or Tabríz, is more picturesque than in Chinese cities.

The plan of the city here given is abridged from a large Chi

nese map. The northern portion was taken possession of by the Manchus in 1644, for barracks and residences, and the government purchased the buildings of the Chinese and gave them to their officers, but necessity soon obliged these men, less frugal and thrifty than the natives, to sell them, and content themselves with humbler abodes; consequently, the greater part of the northern part is now tenanted by Chinese. This division consists of three inclosures, one within the other, each surrounded by its own wall. The innermost contains the imperial palace and its surrounding buildings; the second is occupied by the several offices appertaining to the government, and by many private residences; the outer one, for the most part, consists of dwellinghouses, with shops in the large avenues. The inner area is called Kin Ching, or Prohibited City, and its circumference is about two miles; the wall is nearly as solid as that around the city, faced with glazed bricks, and covered with yellow tiles, which at a distance, and in the sunshine, look brilliantly. A gate on each side of this area gives access to its buildings, and the space and rooms appertaining to them furnish lodgment to the guard which defends the approach to the Dragon's Throne; a tower at each corner, and one over each gateway, also afford accommodation to other troops. The interior of this inclosure is divided into three parts by two walls running from south to north, and the whole is occupied by a suite of court-yards and apartments, which, in their arrangement and architecture, far exceed any other specimens of the kind in China. According to the notions of a Chinese, all here is gold and silver; "he will tell you of gold and silver pillars, gold and silver roofs, and gold and silver vases, in which swim gold and silver fishes."

The southern gate, called the Meridian gate, leads into the middle division, in which are the imperial buildings; it is especially appropriated to the emperor, and whenever he passes through it, a bell and gong, placed in the tower above, are struck; when his troops return in triumph, the prisoners they bring are here presented to him; and here the presents he confers on vassals and ambassadors are pompously bestowed. Passing through this gate into a large court, over a small creek spanned by five marble bridges, which are ornamented with sculptures, the visitor is led into a second court paved with marble, and terminated on

the sides by gates, porticoes, and pillared corridors. The next building of importance is at the head of this court, called the gate of Extensive Peace, and is a superb marble structure, one hundred and ten feet high. It is a sort of balcony where the emperor, on newyear's day, his birthday, and other occasions, receives the homage of his courtiers assembled in the court below; five flights of stairs, decorated with balustrades and sculptures, lead up to it, and five gates open through it into the next court-yard.

Beyond it are two halls, one called that of Perfect Peace, where his majesty examines the implements used in the annual ploughing; the other that of Secure Peace, where he banquets his foreign guests and other distinguished persons on newyear's day. After ascending a stairway and passing another gate, the visitor reaches the Kien Tsing kung or Tranquil Palace of Heaven, into which no one can enter without special license. In it is the council-chamber, and here candidates for office are presented to their sovereign. The building is described as the loftiest, richest, and most magnificent of all the palaces. In the court before it is a small tower of gilt copper, adorned with a great number of figures, and on each side are large incense vases, the uses of which are no doubt religious. It was in this palace that Kanghí celebrated a singular and unique festival, in 1722, for all the men in the empire over sixty years, that being the sixtieth year of his reign. His grandson Kienlung, in 1785, in the fiftieth year of his reign, repeated the same ceremony, on which occasion the number of guests was about three thousand.* This building is considered by the Chinese as the most important of all the imperial edifices. Beyond it stands the Palace of Earth's Repose, where the empress, or "heaven's consort," rules her miniature court in the imperial hareem; and between which and the northern wall of the Forbidden City is the imperial Flower Garden, designed for the use of its inmates. The gardens are adorned with elegant pavilions, temples, and groves, and interspersed with canals, fountains, pools, and flower-beds. Two groves rising from the bosoms of small lakes, and another crowning the summit of an artificial mountain, add to the beauty of the scene, and afford the inmates of the palace an agreeable variety.